ACA faces trouble, but value trumps any downside

Now is the time for Democrats to stand firm. The Affordable Care Act may need some refurbishing but the central provisions - including insuring millions of Americans who previously had no shot at health insurance, sensible minimum standards and mandated coverage - must remain as is.

The Obama administration has made its share of mistakes, starting with the website problems and continuing with the president's claim that everyone now insured could keep the policies they have. Did he not realize that many of those policies do not meet ACA standards and would have to be replaced?

The president has at times seemed defensive. We suppose that's understandable given the unyielding opposition by Republicans to anything that looks like affordable insurance, but it doesn't advance the debate.

His performance Thursday was a noticeable improvement. He accepted blame humbly ("I hear you loud and clear") and showed flexibility by delaying, but not eliminating, the phase-out of existing substandard policies. He insisted, however, that the law must not be undermined.

The GOP is jumping on the ACA problems in an effort to stampede Congress into gutting the act. They have even gotten some House Democrats on board. Among ideas being floated are a delay in the mandate, an extension of the enrollment period and a provision allowing insurers to keep selling new substandard policies.

Presumably, these Democrats are concerned about re-election chances. In that case they need a history lesson. Of the 34 Democratic representatives who voted against the ACA in 2010, presumably to save their political hides, only five are in the House today. The others either lost elections or, as in the case of Blue Dog Democrat Heath Shuler of Waynesville, decided not to run.

Blogger Josh Marshall made some cogent points in defense of minimum standards and the mandate. "One factual and political point that is getting very little attention," he wrote, "is just how many people are affected - people losing policies who will need to pay substantially more without subsidies.

"This is a critical point and I've seen virtually no reliable data. It's all been a political fog. It is clearly a very, very small part of the population and there is abundant evidence that vastly more people are or soon will have reduced premiums or be able to get insurance that they couldn't get before."

As for the mandate, "The simple fact is that you can't ever have a workable system as long as the young and healthy are opted out and the sick and old are in the system. Everybody has to pay in at some relatively comparable level if everyone is going to be able to get permanent insurance at some sort of reasonable rate."

Columnist Leonard Pitts, addressing the president, points out both the strength and the fragility of Obama's position. "People maintain a deep reservoir of goodwill toward you, even now ?

"And it says something that even after three years of strident, hypocritical, extreme and often delusional Republican pounding ? the ACA remains popular with nearly half the American public ?

"But you stretch your luck beyond breaking if you think you can continue to defy gravity while absorbing both the wounds Republicans inflict upon you and those you needlessly inflict upon yourself."

We're not sure Obama's position is as precarious as Pitts believes it is. We concede, however, that his performance Thursday was welcome both for its humility and for its flexibility.

At the same time, the president must stand fast for the core principles of the law and demand that Democrats in Congress do the same. Republicans appear to have no agenda aside from repeal, and that is unacceptable to the millions of people who cannot buy affordable health coverage.